


At the Funeral

by thecat_13145



Category: Captain America (Comics), Invaders (Marvel), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecat_13145/pseuds/thecat_13145
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred Davis's Funeral (because we never got see it)</p>
            </blockquote>





	At the Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: Fred Davis served as Second Bucky, after James Buchan Barnes was killed. He served under two captain Americas before being injured in the line of duty and retiring to work with the FBI and V-Battalion. He was ultimately killed by Leonid Nokov to get at Bucky (who everyone believed was dead at the time)

No father should out live his son.

I remember Falsworth whispering that at Brian’s funeral. He didn’t think anyone heard him, and I certainly never brought it up again-Not like the old man and I were on speaking terms anyway.

I never thought it would apply to me. After all the odds of me having a child, never mind a son seemed bloody unlikely.

But I’m standing here, three sheets to the wind and the intention to get much further than that, and if either Rogers or Barnes come anywhere near me, I think I might punch them.

Fred and I formed a friendship quickly. 

Partly it was simple. I hadn’t had that much to do with the Barnes’ brat and a man running around in another man’s costume is in no position to point fingers.

Fred was a good Bucky, in one sense the Bucky that was needed for the end of the war. Not quite an innocent kid that the comics depicted him as, but at the same time not the hardened assassin Barnes was on the way to being. Trust me the Russians did a lot less reprograming than anyone, including Barnes, wants to admit. But he wasn’t Barnes and the others, from the Invaders to the Kid Commandoes, were too upset to deal with that.

Partly it was that we were a lot alike, not really suited to being superheroes. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with running around in costumes to solve the world’s problems, but it just…wasn’t me. I was a resistance fighter, an SOE operative, wearing a mask so that the Nazis wouldn’t recognise me. Plus the number of Destroyers running around worked great for psychological warfare, before we even knew what that was.

Fred was the same. While he’ll…he would have denied it with his last breath, he was a lot happier as an FBI agent and later with V-battalion. People can call us manipulative sons of bitches, but we get the job done. Often a lot more effectively than these superheroes.

Look at the number of super soldiers there are running around and only one of them even vaguely sane.

I drain my glass and signal to the bar tender I want another. I can see Rogers staring disapprovingly at me, but I ignore him. Might be the only person in the world to be able to do that, but it’s come in handy more than once.

Plus, I’m mad at him.

Fred had spent almost his whole life consumed by Barnes ghost, living under it. Even in V-Battalion it took him a long time to accept that I wanted Fred Davis, not Bucky Barnes. Barnes was a good soldier. Sometimes think he’d have even killed Cap if they gave him the order to. Davis wasn’t. Kid had a mind of his own and knew what to do with it, which is even rarer.

He deserved better than to be killed so some lunatic could get at Barnes. Though I suppose I should be grateful it wasn’t Rogers.

Except Rogers would at least feel guilty. 

Barnes will feel some guilt, the kid isn’t a psychopath-Yet.-but he won’t dwell on it, at least not in the same way Rogers would.

Barnes is a soldier, however much he tries to deny.

Rogers is a hero, “The Real deal” as Fred would say.

I shake my head.

They say at my age you should be used to funeral, more accepting than others of your friends dying, but I’m not.

Maybe it’s that Fred and I are the only ones left who actually had the decency to look our ages. 

I can excuse Rogers and Toro, but for crying out loud the last time Jackie and I ventured out to dinner, the waitress asked her what her grandfather would like! And when Jackie, highly embarrassed, tried to explain that I wasn’t her grandfather, I got a look like I was a dirty old man. Not entirely sure that everything I ate there wasn’t spat into.

At the same time, I’ve buried just about every one of them.

People tend to think the first funeral was Brian’s or Naslund’s, but the truth was it was Barnes and Rogers. Brian organised it with the vicar at Falsworth, though how he explained it to him I have no idea.

Wasn’t a proper funeral, more like an exhumation, with us all gathered in the church yard at dusk, and a shallow hole dug in the ground. No coffin, of course, just an American flag wrapped around some bits. A pipe that Rogers had left in the house some knitted underwear of Barnes, a couple of baseball cards. I remember being humbled at how little we honestly came down to. Brian gave the eulogy. Never referred to Captain America or Bucky, no it was all about Steve Rogers and James Barnes, and the good they did as individuals. He said he hoped it would help things within the group, and certainly things between Fred and Toro seemed to ease up a bit. Though that only meant Toro was civil to Fred. Wouldn’t be till after the Numberg trials that those two actually started to get along. 

Naslund, Poor bastard, was the same. The squad didn’t actually think to tell any of us, it was only when we saw the new Cap in action for the first time that Brian and I guessed. Took nearly all our contacts back then to get a name. Jeff Macey, Patriot as was. Part of the All Winner’s Squad and only decent one of the lot! Probably the only one of any of us here with brains. He walked away. Had a normal life with a normal girl.

Brian’s was the first proper shindig. Not even a quarter of what he deserved, but…no, I won’t fall into that trap, it wasn’t what he would have wanted, dying before he really got a chance to live. Dying when me grieving the way I felt like it could still get me two years hard labour. Dying without me.

Junior Jack said that Vision said that Brian’s soul is at peace, that he refused to come back. Maybe he’s right. Brian was certainly never happy with the secrecy, the hiding of our relationship. Not internalised homophobia, no that was yours truly, thank you very much. The proper aristocracy don’t give a dam about what people think of them, it’s those from the poorer backgrounds who do. Brian loved me, but he and his father…they had a difficult relationship, as Jackie would say. I’d say Lord Falsworth was a bastard and Brian enjoyed setting him off. Think a part of him always worried that was what was between us. But it wasn’t. Brian loved me, and I loved him and that’s all there is to it. Being nearly 60 years since he died, and it still hurts like hell, but I’m too much of a stubborn son of a bitch to give up, and Brian understands. That’s why he’s waiting for me, not pushing himself back. Cause there, that’s the only place we can be together properly, without anyone giving a dam.

Strange to think it was only a couple of years after Brian that we were gathered for him. Jim, the Human torch, the guy who probably is at least a contender for the title of most resurrections. No bones about it, Jim would have loved his funeral. All those people standing around, laughing, crying, seeing people you hadn’t seen in ages, it was a real funeral, even if it marked the point when we all had to accept that all we were going to be meeting for was Hatch, match and dispatch. Sad, but that’s the way it works with friends sometimes.

Toro’s was next and a sad affair. I blame that for Namor taking off without a word after it. Understand he basically went little nuts, not much of a push for Namor I admit, and ended up in a flophouse in New York, before that Storm kid flung him in the sea. 

There were funerals in between of course, far too many of them. We buried Paulette, Gwennie, David, and others too many to count, but I’d almost got used to them when they came back.

Rogers first, then Jim, who managed to die again twice, but came back both, then Barnes, which was the real surprise. And finally Toro.

Try not to be jealous, but people kept talking about the original Invaders coming back, when they haven’t. Brian’s still dead and Jack…some days I’m not sure if she knows what or where she is anymore. Usually when I think that, it’s about Elizabeth, but it fits for Jack too. I mean, sleeping with your son’s best friend, especially when said best friend killed son, is one thing, but sleeping with a guy who tried to kill you on first introductions, that’s a level of craziness even I can’t handle. Sorry, Bri, I did my best, but your sister is simply insane. You can blame the war or the Torch or even just strange genetics (after all only a lunatic would fight in the trenches dressed in a flag), but that’s all there is to it.

Fred would tell me I’m being too hard on her. That O.K. Jack’s behaviour is a little…odd, but that she can look after herself. Maybe he was right.

Jack pushed her way through the crowd. 

“Roger, I’m so…”

“Don’t.” I whispered, because getting this far has taken everything I’ve got and we haven’t even reached the half-way point. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry!”

She shut up for a second. “You’re right.” She said, suddenly laughing. “I don’t even need to ask how you’re feeling, I’ve being there. There’s a hole inside that’ll never go away.” Her voice is harsh, almost raw. She glanced at me, and I realise that she does actually get it. I suppose she should. I mean, she lost her husband and her son. If Jim was here, he’d probably get it too, but he’s comatosed, if he isn’t dead again already. “At least, I suppose, you know the person who did it is gone. The bitch who killed my son is still out there.”

Pointing out that it was Junior Jack who dealt the fatal blow would be cruel, so I simply said, “Doesn’t make it any easier.” I turn to look at her. “Fred spent his whole life trying to get out of the shadow of Barnes. In the end, it’s Barnes’s shadows that killed him.”

Jack shook her head looking around, taking in Steve’s sometimes girlfriend, Barnes’s jailbait, the various heroes in bright costumes, none of whom actually knew Fred, but are all here for Rogers. “We’re a mess,” She said softly. “Aren’t we?”

I shrugged. “It’s a messed up world, pet. We get the heroes they deserve.”

She smiled at that, and glanced over towards Rogers. “I would appear that dying and coming back’s bad for you.” She said. “I don’t remember Steve being nearly so straight-laced.”

I shrug and whisper to her, “Overpaid, over sexed and over here”

“As opposed to under paid, under sex and under Jack?” We both laugh and Rogers frowns even more. Bloody Yank, can’t understand that to laugh is our only option. To cry is just for us. Fred’s in a better place now, even if it’s hurts us both like hell.

I hold up my whisky. “To Fred Davis,” I said, as Jackie ordered her own. “Bucky, but also the best Engineer I ever knew.”

“To Fred.” Jackie agreed. “May he have the sense to bloody well stay dead!”


End file.
